#Bhindranwale to #GurmeetRamRahim

“#Bhindranwale to #GurmeetRamRahim” — is that the best “Molotov cocktail” you can concoct, #DhananjayaMahapatra at The Times of India? Your column is not just misleading and utterly distasteful, it blatantly wrong on facts. Only someone with an extremely handicapped understanding of histories can come up with the summations, inferences, and selective equations like the one you’ve so callously scribbled.

Bhindrawala did not lead any attack whatsoever on Baba Gurbachan Singh Nirankari. It was the Akhand Krtani Jatha (AKJ) who were peacefully protesting against the then Indian government’s heinous attempt to insult the Sikhs for their trend setting opposition of Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975. AKJ founder, Bhai Sahib Bhai Randhir Singh, and his countless colleagues made phenomenal contributions in India’s freedom struggle. Akhand Kirtani Jatha members were shot dead by Gurbachan Singh’s body guards who was posing as a godman sitting at a more elevated position than Sahib Sri Guru Granth Sahib. I will debate with you anywhere and anytime with regards to the “Molotov cocktails” brewed by the then Indian regime. Gurbachan Singh was being used then by Indira Gandhi, not Bhai Sahib Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

The similarity? If Gurbachan Singh was plagiarising the term Nirankari, from the original Gur-Sikh hermitage, but particularly from Guru Nanak for it was he who was known as Nanak-Nirankari; for it was he who had two greetings: Dhan Nirankar and Sat Kartar. Gurmeet Ram Rahim has also plagiarised Guru Nanak. Guru Baba Nanak is the one who engaged in “Saccha-Saudda” at Sultanpur Lodhi when he worked in the administration of Nawab Daulat Khan Lodhi at Sultanpur Lodhi.

I have to rush to the TV studios right now and I will update this rebuttal of mine. But it was the British who first instigated the wave of Hindu Nationalism, then came the Muslim response. Sikh brand of Nationalism came only after these two and in response. I am a staunch opponent of all of these three. You meantime get your histories corrected and stop your kid-talk on narratives for these are clearly beyond your brief!